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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23566825">A Tactical Error</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenevolentErrancy/pseuds/BenevolentErrancy'>BenevolentErrancy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mass Effect Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Humour, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:21:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,140</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23566825</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenevolentErrancy/pseuds/BenevolentErrancy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Given that Garrus was a tactical adviser for the Primarch of Palaven during the most significant war in galactic history, he can make some enormously stupid tactical decisions in moments of panic.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Shepard &amp; Garrus Vakarian, Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Garrus Vakarian &amp; Solana Vakarian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>122</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Tactical Error</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You expect me to believe that the great Advisor Vakarian still hasn't managed to find himself a date.”</p><p>Garrus closed his eyes and breathed out slowly, willing the headache he could already feel digging into his brain to go away. He very nearly raised a hand to try to rub away the pressure building under his plates and only just caught himself in time – he'd avoided vid comm for a long time after the injury he'd received to his face and had gotten used to speaking to his sister without need to worry about her watching his body language. He doubted she'd appreciate him implying that she was headache inducing.</p><p>Even if it was true.</p><p>“I've told you, that position was nominal <em>at best</em>. And 'Reaper Advisor' doesn't sound quite so impressive now that there are, you know, no more Reapers.”</p><p>“Right,” drawled Solana from her end of the vid comm. “'Nominal'. Just like you told me you were 'nominally' going on a pleasure cruise while you were, in fact, flinging yourself into a life-threatening suicide mission to kill Reapers. Just like you were 'nominally' a no-good, jobless family disgrace when you were siphoning us money from your top secret hero missions and somehow pulling salarian STG strings to get mom help. 'Nominally'.”</p><p>“I didn't tell you any of that, you just assumed,” Garrus insisted. “I never lied. Exactly.”</p><p>“Besides, it doesn't <em>matter</em> if you're really a Reaper advisor or not, <em>you're</em> the reason there's no more damn Reapers! Come on, you must be fighting off all the ladies that want to part plates with you.”</p><p>“Solana!”</p><p>“What? It's true!”</p><p>“If you haven't noticed, Sol, my face looks like the underside of a krogan's foot. Can we drop this–”</p><p>“That little scratch? You big whiner, that hardly counts. Besides, you're a big damn hero! Or are you just keeping your lady friends a secret from your family? You know, like you did about every other aspect of your life up until now?”</p><p>“Sol, I keep telling you I'm <em>sorry</em> it's just...”</p><p>“Yeah yeah, I know. But Garrus. Brother. I love you. But come on you need a date. You've saved the galaxy, flown all over the known universe, been <em>blown up</em> a few times, but you are still completely incapable of managing to bring a girl home. You need to loosen up a bit, relax, find some sort of stability that doesn't go 'bang' when you pull a trigger. Even <em>Father's</em> been asking.”</p><p>“Oh Spirits please no,” groaned Garrus, this time not even trying to resist the urge to drop his head into his hands and press his fingers against his brow plates.</p><p>“Oh yes,” said Solana smugly. “Listen, you're coming home for the holidays, right?”</p><p>“Yes...” he said, suspiciously.</p><p>And with good cause it turned out, because Solana's mandible's flared in a grin and she said “Great, because I have a friend who would <em>love </em>to meet you.”</p><p>“No!” said Garrus immediately, jerking up. “You are not setting me up on a date! Never again. You swore, never again!”</p><p>Solana, the dramatist that she was, flung her head back with an exasperated groan. “Of <em>course</em> I said that! Because last time I set you up with someone nice you made awkward small talk with her about your C-Sec training for like an hour. It was embarrassing! I could barely look her in the eyes again after that! But,” she said seriously, “I'm willing to believe that you've grown as a person and I will magnanimously rescind my previous refusal.”</p><p>“So kind,” muttered Garrus. “Listen, Sol, I am planning to come up for the holidays – we're planned to have some shore leave around then anyways, and it's not like we're doing anything but clean up right now – but I am not bringing a date and you are not, I repeat, <em>not</em>–”</p><p>“I will get you a date, Garrus. Trust me, you'll love her. You might even succeed in not scaring her away.”</p><p>“Spirits, Solana, why are you so determined? Can't you worry about your own love life?”</p><p>“Hey, I'm the one that stayed home with Mom and had to listen to Father drill me about my girlfriend <em>constantly</em>! It's your turn to take some of the fire for me, Garrus.”</p><p>“I should have guessed as much.”</p><p>“So it's decided! You come up for the holidays, and I'll have someone here for you to meet–”</p><p>“Sol, no, I can't.”</p><p>“Can't, or won't?” she demanded, arms crossed. Even with the comm's bad speakers he could hear her warning subharmonics, the sort he'd get when he was a kid and about to find himself in one of her headlocks.</p><p><em>How bad would one date be?</em> a small corner of his mind whispered. <em>Might even be nice. Spirits know when the last time you had a proper date was, with dinner and everything.</em></p><p>But then another face crossed his mind. It was pointless, useless, probably somewhat delusional but it soured any thoughts of a date.</p><p>“<em>Can't</em>, Sol.”</p><p>“Please, name one reason–”</p><p>“Fine, I am with someone! Are you happy?”</p><p>As the silenced stretched on and Garrus stared at Solana's gaping face, her mandibles slack with shock, Garrus realized he just made a very serious tactical miscalculation.</p><p>“<em>You're seeing someone–</em>”</p><p>“Now Sol...” he said desperately, trying to figure out how to backpedal.</p><p>“<em>And you didn't even </em>mention<em> it–</em>”</p><p>“It's not like...”</p><p>“No, stop talking, I'm angry with you!” said Solana, holding a threatening finger in front of the screen. She took a deep breath, never breaking eye-contact, before releasing it and lowering her finger. “Okay, I'm over it. How long?”</p><p>For a moment Garrus seriously considered simply admitting that he had lied. Everything would end there, no harm, no foul. He would probably get ribbed by her a bit, but nothing he hadn't heard a hundred times growing up with her. Except it wouldn't end. If anything it might make Solana decide that if he was making up girlfriends that he was pathetic enough for her to double her matchmaking efforts.</p><p>“Oh,” he said, “a little while. Not long. You might have noticed, but I've been pretty busy.”</p><p>“Huh. Is she cute?”</p><p>“Oh, you know,” he said desperately, trying to figure out how he was supposed to respond to that. Was his fictional girlfriend cute? Spirits, if he overexagerated things she would know it was a fantasy for sure. “Average?” he said eventually.</p><p>Solana gave an amused snort. “Really, Garrus? This is why you've been single since the dawn of time. What's her name?”</p><p><em>A name?</em> Garrus stared blankly at the screen as every single name he had ever heard in his life fled his mind. What was her name? What was his fictional girlfriend's name?</p><p>“Garrus, I'm asking you to tell me what your date's name is, not classified Citadel information. Spill.”</p><p>“Shepard! Her name is Shepard.”</p><p>Another silence, even heavier this time than the last, and Garrus wanted to do nothing more than step out the airlock.</p><p>“As in <em>your commanding officer?</em> As in <em>Commander Shepard, Savior of the Galaxy</em>. That Shepard? Spirits, Garrus!”</p><p>The first thing that came to Garrus' mind to say was <em>she really, really hated people calling her that</em>. It was closely followed by <em>you know her name?</em> He resisted saying either though, especially since of course Solana knew Shepard's name. It didn't matter that Garrus had kept his work secret from his family, the entire damn galaxy knew Shepard's name. It had just been the first one to pop into his mind! Oh Spirits, how was he going to get himself out of this.</p><p>“Ye-eah,” he said. “You know how it is. Stuck in a small space ship for months, adrenaline running high. It was a way to blow off steam.”</p><p>Solana's mandibles were twitching into a grin now though. “Sure,” she said, “but it's been months since the war ended and you're still together.”</p><p>Garrus shrugged. “I can trust her,” he said gaining some confidence in his lie. All he had to do was string her along for a little while longer, just long enough to keep her from foisting some poor, unsuspecting woman on him when he came home, and then he could tell her they broke up, that it turned out it was fun while it lasted but nothing long-term. That made Garrus pause, the thought of breaking up with Shepard dropping heavily into his gut, like he'd swallowed an overclocked heatsink. He gave himself a shake, he was being ridiculous – they weren't dating and it would be a completely pretend break up, it would all happen without Shepard even <em>knowing</em>. What was wrong with him. His mouth kept moving though, “I can trust her with anything. Everything. She's done more for me than you could ever imagine, seen more of me than I could have imagined anyone seeing a few years ago. There's no one else I'd rather have at my side.”</p><p>“Wow. You're serious about her,” said Solana, drawing Garrus up short. Was a lie supposed to convince her that easily? Then Solana gave him a toothy smirk. “I'm still going to tell her you called her average looking, even if she is a human.”</p><p>Garrus mandibles snapped to his jaw. Suddenly his skin felt too tight for his body “You're... what? How are you planning on doing that?”</p><p>“...When you bring her home for the holidays?” said Solana slowly, like she was explaining something very obvious to a small child.</p><p>“I can't... There's a mission...”</p><p>“Really, are we back to this again?” Solana asked, crossing her arms. “You just finished telling me you were all getting shore leave. So bring her home, I want to meet the Savior of the Galaxy. And even more importantly, I want to meet the woman who's managed to date my brother for <em>months</em> and not strangle him.”</p><p>“I – no. No. That's not...” And suddenly the lie got hard again, he could feel himself getting tangled in it. “<em>She</em>'s busy, the rest of the squad isn't.”</p><p>Solana's eyes narrowed. “She has a mission... without her team?” she said, skepticism thick on her voice.</p><p>“Not a <em>mission</em> exactly, it's...” <em>Think, Vakarian.</em> “Council.” <em>Perfect. Give it a couple days and it may even become accurate, since it seemed like the Council couldn't last longer than half a week lately without asking Shepard to wipe their noses for them.</em> “She's all booked up with Council meetings, that's why the rest of us get shore leave.”</p><p>“Mm,” said Solana. Her subharmonics sounded unhappy, but not exactly like she disbelieved him. Garrus counted it as a win.</p><p>“You'll just have to meet her another time,” he said breezily. Before which he'd figure out a convincing way to tell Solana they broke up. “Anyway, I should run, love you, see you over the holidays. And please don't tell dad about... about, you know. Shepard.”</p><p>“What, you think he <em>won't</em> like your human Spectre girlfriend?” asked Solana dryly.</p><p>Actually... Garrus hadn't even thought about that. He just hadn't wanted the lie to spread. “Uh,” he said, as a horrifying scene of Garrus trying to introduce Shepard, who was sick and tired of any sort of authority telling her what to do, to his father, who thought that anyone who didn't follow a very strict set of rules and conventions was lower than dirt. At least dirt sat where it was supposed to.</p><p><em>But that didn't matter</em>, he reminded himself. This was pretend. This <em>was not</em> happening.</p><p>At least Garrus' look of abject horror seemed believable, because Solana's mandibles twitched sympathetically. “Fine, I'll keep it to myself. For now. But you better figure out how to tell her because I expect to meet her sooner or later,” she warned.</p><p>“Thanks, Sol,” said Garrus, a little weakly.</p><p>“Bye, brother.”</p><p>“Bye.”</p><p>The second the call was closed, Garrus collapsed bodily against the desk. What had he gotten himself into, Omega was suddenly looking like a more manageable situation than this. Maybe if he asked nicely, Shepard would let him go up against another gunship in exchange for this conversation never having happened.</p><p>-</p><p>Garrus would have liked to have put that entire conversation behind him. Just not touch it again until after he'd finished visiting his family when it was time to concoct a break up. It was proving to be... surprisingly difficult. It was proving to be <em>especially</em> difficult every time Shepard was in the same room. He couldn't seem to stop his mind from going in all the wrong directions.</p><p>Shepard was, undeniably, irrevocably, his best friend. He'd never thought he'd call a human that. Back in the SR-1 days he'd liked her plenty – he had respected her, enjoyed their long, evening discussions down on the lower deck, and was delighted to find her sense of humour as quick and ruthless as her gun. At the time though, he wasn't sure he would have thought to call her a friend. She was his commanding officer – and a Spectre, and okay, maybe he had had a slight case of hero worship. Shepard was just... Shepard, and he'd felt grateful simply to be allowed to ditch the Citadel and join her on her mission.</p><p>Then she had died. And Garrus' world had crumbled. It hadn't been until he had answered that life-altering call from Liara and heard her distraught voice that he had realized, oh, yes, she had been a friend. It had been so easy though, he hadn't even noticed it happening. She wasn't a particularly emotional person, didn't expect him to be; she would debate gun mods and listen to him rant about the Mako and had just general inserted herself into his life so easily that he hadn't even noticed until it was gone.</p><p>Then she had come back, had stomped back into his life, guns blazing, seconds before he should have by any rights been dead. And he knew from that point on that he would follow this woman into hell and back, not just out of respect, not just out of a need for adventure, but because he wanted to be nowhere other than her side. And then Reapers, and War, and she had died <em>again</em>. Should have died, but hadn't. Everything should be good now, everything should feel safe and solid and comfortable.</p><p>Except now he found himself looking at her and <em>thinking</em>. If anyone should be having a hard time keeping suitors back, surely it must be Shepard. Garrus Vakarian might have been Reaper Advisor to the Primarch, might have been a soldier in the fight, but Shepard, no matter how much she hated people saying it, was the <em>Savior of the Galaxy</em>. And at some other point, the idea of Shepard being <em>flirted with</em> – or worse, trying to flirt herself – might have been hilarious. Except now he found himself thinking, well... why should she be trying to keep them back? She would, theoretically, settle down at some point. Most humans did. Why shouldn't Shepard?</p><p>The thought of his best friend falling in love should have made him <em>happy</em>.</p><p>But somehow, in vague ways he had never bothered to examine or define before now, he had always sort of seen himself at Shepard's side. Flying off across the galaxy, guns blazing, Shepard and Vakarian against the world. If she fell in love though. Got married. <em>Retired</em>... Where was his place in that?</p><p>Spirits, it wasn't even that he resented the idea of her retiring... although given that yet another near death experience still hadn't managed to slow her down (well, not after she'd healed enough to hobble around on crutches, at least) it was hard to imagine, but still. Even then though he'd sort of thought... well, he'd be there. With her. Somehow. He'd never really considered it. But now he was.</p><p>“Earth to Vakarian.”</p><p>Garrus blinked. “What about Earth? Are we going to Earth?”</p><p>Shepard rolled her eyes and smirked at him. Garrus' stomach flip-flopped. That was new.</p><p>“It's an expression. You were zoning out there.”</p><p>“Uh... sorry, just... thinking. What were you saying?”</p><p>“I'd asked if you have plans for shore leave,” she said mildly, turning back to the window as she said so, watching the Citadel's sky as the Normandy idled, waiting to dock.</p><p>“Er, yeah, actually. It's a pretty big turian holiday, I was planning on catching a transport back home for a couple weeks, see my family again. ...I don't suppose I could convince you to shoot me before that?” he added, only half joking.</p><p>Shepard just laughed, and then gave him a grin. Not just any grin – Garrus was getting remarkably good at reading human facial expressions after spending so much time on Alliance ships, and he could see the predatory gleam in this one.</p><p>“This wouldn't have anything to do with the really weird message I received on my terminal earlier today, would it?”</p><p>Garrus swore he could feel the blood leave his face.</p><p>“From a 'Solana Vakarian'? Anyone you know?”</p><p>“Please shoot me,” he said, no longer joking.</p><p>Shepard kept grinning like a varren, voice ringing with its amusement. “She sent me a message asking if I wouldn't be able to get out of my meetings at all early, and come for at least a day or two. At first I thought it was a misfired message that had gotten mixed up in the comm relay mess out there, but no, I was definitely addressed by name and then there was the name Vakarian. So, naturally, I sent a message back asking <em>what</em> meetings, since I'll be damned if I'm going to hang out with the fucking Council during my shore leave, and <em>where</em> I was supposed to be going. You would <em>not</em> believe what she said back.”</p><p>This was so much worse than his dad finding out. This was possibly the worst thing that could have happened to him, and he'd been blasted by Reaper fire.</p><p>“Shepard, please, let me explain...”</p><p>“I think you'll have to, because I apparently slept through the part when we started dating.”</p><p>Garrus' subharmonics keened pitifully, not that Shepard could hear them.</p><p>“It's a lie I told my sister.”</p><p>“I did figure that much out, big guy. Any particular reason?”</p><p>Garrus explained in a rush, each word tripping over itself to get out, desperate to make Shepard understand. “And then it... started to get out of hand,” he finished, lamely.</p><p>“Huh,” said Shepard. “That's one way to deal with that situation, I guess.” She nudged his side. “But if you do want an imaginary girlfriend to keep your family off your back, I have always wanted to see Palaven.”</p><p>Garrus was pretty sure his cerebrum fused. By the time he'd managed to process what exactly Shepard had just said, the Normandy had jolted to a stand still and Shepard was already marching off.</p><p>“I– Shepard, <em>wait!</em>”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just a short and sweet, goofy premise. Sorry to leave it off there, I've been going back through old WIPs to see what can be cleaned up and posted so that they don't just rot away on my computer. Hopefully it was fun enough to enjoy as is.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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